Steel Section labels

[david_peterson]

I know this is going to sound a little picky, but our current standard uses lower case "x" in steel section tags ie W18x40 instead of the capital "X" ie W24X40. Mainly because we think they read better with lower case x's. Is there an easy way to change how these tags look?
Thanks

[Tom Weir]

David,
I got to agree with you there, though I do not have an answer to your quesiton...

Tom Weir
Los Angeles

[kmarsh]

I'll throw my 2cents in and say that I also agree. Same goes with the "x"'s in column callouts etc. Just easier to read. Does anybody use caps? I'm going to drop this over in the wishlist with a poll.
-ken

[jrichardson]

We use caps with a space W18 X 35. I have revised the "W-Wide Flange.txt" file which holds all of the beam properties for this beam family. A simple find and replace for "X" and replace with "x" should work in your case. Put spaces before and after the " x " if you want spaces. This file is located in the same folder as the default W-Wide Flange family

[kmarsh]

Hey J,
Thanks for your response. There is a similar thread going over in the wishlist. I tried the manual edits to the catalog file and was successful in changing the X to x in all but the autoloaded families (the W12X26 specifically) I made the replacements with find-and-replace-all, so I know that the W12X26 looks like W12x26 in the catalog file. I then added several beams, a couple W12x22's and they display correctly and then a couple of W12X26 and they display with the capitol X.
Have you noticed this issue too?

FMI, I did reload all of the families between W12x14 and W12x35 before trying my experiment.

[Paul Andersen]

Our firm uses a lower case x as well and we use the same method as outlined above (adjusting the name in the txt files). These txt files are the type catalogues for the families and is also where you could add odd member sizes that aren't currently included with Revit. To save you some time if you are an imperial user I've attached the converted txt files that we use. The files are a conversion of the stock release 2 imperial files.

[Paul Andersen]

Depending on which template you use some Wide Flange types are already loaded. Reloading the family should take care of this issue.

Edit:
My bad reloading does not seem to work. It appears that Revit only applies the type cataloge upon initial loading of a given type and ignores it if the type is already loaded (my guess is because the name is technically the same aside from the case of the x). For a template deleting the already loaded types from the browser and reloading them does the trick. However this would not be the favorable approach for a project already underway as it will delete all instances of the that type.

[jrichardson]

The statements made above appear to be correct. You should be able to rename the type of those that are already loaded. If you are simply naming it from capital "X" to small case "x". It will tell you it can not do this because that type name already exist. What I have done was to rename it it as something else - apply than rename it with the lower case. Your list of sizes probably isn't that large so it should be able to be done rather quickly. Future projects should display properly

As far as the auto loaded ones, you are correct these do not appear to get updated. Maybe someone can explain how these auto loaded sizes are loaded behind the scenes. It appears that the auto loaded ones are being pulled from a different file.